


Black, White, Grey

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cylons, Developing Relationship, F/F, Female Anti-Hero, Female Character of Color, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, Secret Identity, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-19
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cally didn't know she was one of the Final Five at the Nebula—now that she does, the facade of her old life is fading away, and Tory's there as something almost terrifyingly new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A remix of frolicndetour 's AU ficlet Relief, that sort of became a "The Final Five learn to be empowered" fic. This 4-chapter story is a complete mini-plot, but the second half of the arc will be in a separate story and is not finished yet. This fic was a fascinating project for me in that there is no focus on Kara and only very slight on Sam and Dee (my three pivot characters), and also deals with characters who, while not evil (in fact I love them dearly), make mistakes and don't necessarily regret all of them.

For once, Cally didn’t mind Nicky’s wails. It was a lot easier to explain the violet-grey circles under her eyes to Galen with that than the fact that she couldn’t get a song out of her head. At first she thought it must be a virus going around, when she lost her lunch right as they jumped into the Nebula and saw Tory just across the stalls with the same purpose. Cottle told her later that she should probably cut back on her dosage of anti-depressants.

Cally stopped feeling sick a couple days afterwards and got back to work. But she couldn’t sleep without a cascade of chords and notes pummeling her brain with an urgent need to _wake_ and _move_. Sometimes she hated her brain.

Nicky weeping because he hated supper, that was a lot more pleasant, even when she could swear that her hearing had sharpened enough so that the slight echoes of his screams off the metal walls were distinct in her ears. At least she wasn’t hearing music coming from the bulkheads anymore. She’d always known herself to have been some kinds of crazy, but not the tie-you-up-and-send-you-to-Canceron-City kind.

***

“Are you sure?” Tory gnawed the inside of her lip as she stood at the back of the hangar bay.

“I gotta get off this ship,” Anders murmured, fidgeting in a way that his leather flight-suit crinkled continually. “And Kara—you know she and I—”

“Maybe she’s one of the two we don’t know yet,” Tory nodded. Anders would follow any path if he was determined enough, and Kara had always made him that at least.

“Actually, no, that wasn’t—” Anders’ frown was almost twisting in dark humor. “Maybe she is, but if she isn’t, I still need to be there, on Demetrius.”

“Right.” Tory nodded and sighed. “Just me and Tigh then.”

“Sorry,” Anders said, putting a hand to her arm and squeezing a little.

Tory offered him an open half smile, thinking how oddly unfair it was that her one source of relief had his duty rise from the dead again to draw him away. Loyalty could be broken, but she wouldn’t do it with Anders. Maybe she didn’t need someone that aware, maybe she could get to someone like Lee through the political side of things.

Anders swallowed, gave her arm a last tight squeeze, and walked off with a long exhale and didn’t look back.

Tory didn’t go for a drink that night. Without her fellow Cylons, she didn’t want to. She didn’t fear her very self enough to need to drown it all away. With no agenda for them other than saving their human identities, Tory and Tigh kept to their routines. But Tory knew she was the only one who wasn’t faking her calm.

***

Nicky broke through Cally’s nightmare with a piercing cry, and she groaned and rolled over, not caring that her elbow hit Galen in the side on the way. She could have woken him (men never heard babies on their own), told him it was his turn—but only if she wanted to go back to her nightmare. It had felt familiar, but the slippery not-quite-water beneath her fingers in it didn’t promise comfort, and there had been words echoing in her brain that had made her heart race.

Like all dreams, this one faded almost as soon as she stood up. She shivered a little, tripping over the rug before she got to Nicky’s crib. The tears streamed down his face and his nose dripped. Cally wiped him with a blanket as she rested him on her hip. holding his face close to her chest so that he could feel her and relax.

She stood with him in her arms and heard his cries die out. Her breathing, slow and steady, didn’t change as the world seemed to detach and spin. Had she eaten anything for dinner, she might have felt sick. She didn’t. It was almost like dizziness, but not.

Then that insane earworm flew into the strange sudden doldrum, and swelled to fill the void with inescapable sound. The hammering beat she could feel deep down in her bones, and once the words started she knew something was wrong.

Nicky’s cries started up again, as the music moved on, but Cally was not letting it just waltz away now. She was awake, and she was heading to face this, the music that was traveling out and down to abandoned rooms and airlocks below.

Cally felt that some kind of end would be waiting for her. Nicky’s sobs calmed to hiccoughs as she left the chamber, bare-footed and bleary-eyed and lost in a swirl of words about watchtowers.

***

Tory hated being alone in bed, not because she needed talk or comfort, but because the ship was too cold and her needs too urgent. Since Anders had left, she’d not found a substitute, even for a couple hours. She could warm herself up for a few minutes of gasping pleasure, but the sheets and blankets around her just cooled, and she curled into her pillow and forced sleep on herself to forget the chill feeling in her limbs. She was a machine, she shouldn’t have to deal with physicality, but she hadn’t discovered how to fix that yet.

Yet with her face buried in the pillow, her ears could still hear. Not just the creak and murmur of the old ship, not just the far-off thuds and tinkles of footsteps and metal clanking against metal, but something much closer.

Tory shook herself awake and her intake of breath scraped loudly past her teeth. Just out of hearing, she recognized that song playing. Distant, threading through all the space in between where it was and where Tory’s quarters were.

She rose swiftly and flung a nightrobe on, slipping into her shoes because her feet were too cold. Needing to know the next step that hopefully the song would bring, she slipped through the many corridors along the way, small and silent and unnoticed.

It wasn’t a part of the ship she’d seen since the Nebula, and the music wasn’t leading to the same room. This time...this time it was a few doors down, right by the airlock that the Circle had used to execute Cylon collaborators.

Tory stood for a second, not sure where she was being taken. Then a whimpering cry met her ear, and she whirled on her feet. Her skin prickled with both a thrill and a shiver, and she kept her steps silent as she walked to the airlock door.

She didn’t recognize the woman kneeling there, child clutched close to breast, agonized tears running down her face. Not by sight, anyways. But Tory knew as the music finally died away that this was it.

The woman looked up at that moment, but not at Tory. Her breaths became shaky, but no longer cries.

“It’s amazing when it finally stops, isn’t it,” Tory offered. She held back a few paces, hands loosely clasped in front of her, watching this new destiny unfold.

The woman rose to her feet, face a dangerous mixture of pale and flush, fear and anger. “Stay the frak away from me!”

“Why? What are you doing here?”

“I’m not telling you,” the woman spat at her.

“You were crying,” Tory said, tipping her head slightly towards this unknown woman who was almost certainly one of the Five. “Should I assume that you were abused somehow, and call for help? Or would you like to be honest and clear up this whole issue?”

The baby in her arms seemed far too large for her to carry, but she kept rocking it back and forth, anxious and suspicious. “Why are you down here?”

“I heard the song too.” Tory didn’t add any inflection, any emphasis, any body movement. No purpose in influencing things yet.

“You know?” The woman didn’t look sure whether she wanted to step forward or away. “You could feel it?”

“We’re both Cylons,” Tory said and kept her face firm, not sure if she felt the truth of it yet. “Though I don’t know your name...”

“No, don’t do that,” the woman protested, backing up a couple steps, rubbing her free hand through her stringy hair. “I can’t be—I’m not—I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!” Her voice broke into a cry, face twisting, and she buried it for a moment in her child’s shoulder.

Tory finally felt the rising sense of kindredship, and she ignored everything else as she stepped forward, hand raised palm outward. “Of course, it’s not that simple. Nothing is.”

“So you mean my subconscious didn’t draw me here to give me an opportunity to kill myself, before I do it to someone else?” The woman’s face drew tight, even as tears kept falling from her eyes.

Tory’s brow furrowed and all the possibilities hit her. She didn’t like some of them, and she felt some connection that pushed past everything else, so she stepped in. “Shh, shh, you can’t do that.” The baby started weeping, and the woman with it. “Here, let me.”

“He’s a half Cylon,” the woman sobbed, arms falling loosely to her side as Tory took the squirming infant in her arms. “And if I’m—killing myself won’t work, will it?”

“Probably not,” Tory admitted, not sure exactly what to do with the baby, but noticing that bouncing him worked for the moment. Standing more closely to the woman, she saw just how hollow and lined her face looked, and yet even in her sleep clothes, she’d worn her military tags. Tory glimpsed the name—C. Tyrol.

“Cally,” she said softly, remembering. Of course it was Cally, however much older and wearier she looked since they’d met briefly a few times on New Caprica. And Cally was one of the Five, just like Tory, losing herself to this trick of the universe that might not be so cruel after all.

“I should kill myself anyway,” Cally said, shaking her head. “Before I do something, before Galen finds out and—” Her face crumpled again. “Tory, I can’t do it myself. I’m so tired, I’m so tired. I can’t.”

“Don’t keep talking like that,” Tory heard herself saying, as Cally’s knees buckled a little, and she sunk to the floor. Setting the baby who was no longer crying down to look around by himself, Tory knelt by her new fellow Cylon and reached out for her hands. Cally’s were rough, worn at the edges, strong even while being so small. Her large eyes bleared with despair and exhaustion as she looked up at Tory. “Hey,” Tory said.

Cally’s face contorted, her body stilling. “I’m a Cylon,” she said, the words catching and coming out barely above a whisper. “I’m a Cylon—I’m—”

Tory pulled Cally’s hands to her, wrapped her own arms around the tiny woman’s tensely shaking shoulders. “Hush, Cally, breathe,” she urged. She had a feeling that there wasn’t much time, that Cally needed to come to grips or they would all be lost. If Cally couldn’t pull herself together, she might not kill herself but she wouldn’t be able to keep her worries hidden from anyone else. “Breathe, breathe.”

Cally clung to Tory, face buried between her breasts, tears already soaking Tory’s nightrobe. Tory stroked her back, slow and gentle, and the thought brushed past her mind that Cally was warm and Tory didn’t really want to let her go. Tigh had left her alone, Anders was out of reach, but now she’d found another one of them and they needed each other. The feeling of being needed warmed her more than she would have wanted to admit.

“What do I do?” Cally asked after a second, turning her head to catch a breath even as she held Tory in a desperate embrace.

“Stay calm,” Tory offered, nodding, her face pressed against Cally’s hair as she held her safely. “You’re not the only one. Saul Tigh and Sam Anders also found out.”

“What?”

“At the Nebula, we all found ourselves hearing the same song. It’s been a long time for us to get used to it.”

“I heard it then,” Cally said, sniffing back tears. “I was on drugs, though, so it was all... away.”

“Drugs help?” Tory asked, interested for the moment. But she shook her head and found the words that Cally had to hear. “We don’t know what it all means, but we’re not evil—and we haven’t hurt the Fleet yet. The other Cylons don’t know who we are, so we must be different. We can’t be rash, and we can’t let anyone know, until...until we do.”

“That’s it? That’s all you know?”

“Unless you discovered something else.” Tory shrugged.

Cally laughed through her tears. “Gods, what a mess!” She sounded broken, but at least she wasn’t frantic.

Tory thought that this was a good time to switch to doing rather than talking, and she rubbed Cally’s shoulder. “We’ve got to get you somewhere you can clean up, pull yourself together before someone suspects.”

Cally drew back a little, and she’d been right, she was a mess. Tory’s brow creased a little, and she carefully wiped the remaining tear trail from Cally’s face. Then, not fully able to explain why she did it, she leaned in and kissed her gently. It wasn’t entirely unexpected; Tory had felt it the moment the Cylon connection had bloomed in her, an intuition of companionship. Tory didn’t get close to people, not usually, and when she did...this happened. She couldn’t explain it any more than she could prevent it.

Cally didn’t break the kiss, her hand still wrapped around Tory’s shoulder.

“Okay?” Tory asked after she pulled back.

Cally nodded and swallowed.

“You can’t go back to Galen like this.” Tory helped Cally to her feet, feeling more comfortable than she had in weeks, and quieter. Nicky, who was just staring at the ceiling with half-closed sleepy eyes, made no noise when Tory scooped him up and handed him back to his mother.

“I can’t not go back to him either,” Cally said and frowned, but her crying and shaking had stopped.

Tory’s hand still rested on Cally’s shoulder as they stood close to one another by the airlock door. Her mind flashed through a few options before settling on one, and the details came to her as she started to speak. “You were on drugs, right? Whatever happens tomorrow, you can tell him that there was an overdose, that I found you and took you in.”

“But why would you do that? I mean, why would he believe it?”

“We take care of our own,” Tory said with a small smile, stroking Cally’s shoulder. “That counts for the Fleet as well as for what we are.”

Cally gave a slight shudder, but nodded. “Okay.”

Resting her arm comfortably across Cally’s shoulders, Tory started walking back down the halls they’d come from. She resisted the urge to rest her head against Cally’s, give her more comfort, feel the warmth again.

“Sam Anders is one of us too?” Cally asked after a second. “How can that be?”

“Yes, he is, but we don’t know anything else,” Tory said.

“Does that mean Starbuck...?”

“We don’t know that either,” said Tory.

“At least now I know I’m not losing it if the world looks upside down,” Cally muttered as Tory led her to her quarters.

Tory smiled to herself.

Her bed was too small for three to sleep comfortably in, but Cally didn’t have the strength to notice when Tory just tucked her and Nicky in and left them alone. Cally’s eyes fell shut in almost an instant, Nicky curled in the crook of her arm. Tory brushed Cally’s hair out of her face, wrapped the spare blanket around herself, and sat on the floor. Leaning her head against the bed, she closed her eyes

Only a few hours later, Cally screamed out with a kind of nightmare. Tory jerked herself awake instantly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Cally whispered, as she calmed Nicky back to sleep. “I’ve never had—not that bad.”

“When was the last time you slept alone?” Tory had a feeling that all the Five were going to have the same first few days.

Cally shook her head slowly.

“You need sleep if you’re going to survive,” Tory said and touched her arm.

“I shouldn’t have taken all the bed in the first place,” Cally suggested, looking up at Tory.

“I wouldn’t call it taking,” Tory said with a half smile, as she slid into the bed next to Cally, who still sat up with Nicky in arms.

Tory leaned back against the wall and held Cally to her chest, almost an upright spooning in the small bed—yet they fit comfortably. Less than a minute later, Cally’s head drooped and lay against Tory’s arm, and Tory closed her eyes. Nicky’s quiet snuffling as he slept was the last sound she heard before she fell asleep, feeling secure for the first time in a while. She wasn’t alone in this; a pathetic reason to feel anything, but Tory felt it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter makes use (with permission) of certain aspects from lyssie 's AU fic "Keeping the Surprise"

Cally’s first thought was worry in the morning, even waking safe and sound with Nicky having slept through the night. Tory’s presence through her first self-aware night was comforting, and maybe something more—but it was that more that had her brow furrowing. The fact that she hadn’t had a panic attack yet almost scared her by itself.

“Tory,” she said and frowned.

“Good, you’re awake,” Tory commented from behind her head. They shifted, having sort of crumpled against each other during the night. “We can’t skip our duties, not if we don’t want people guessing our secret.”

“Tory,” Cally said again, and turned around to look at the one person she could count on. But the question she was going to ask, the reality she was going to question...it faded away in an instant. No need to ask, she knew. Just as she’d known yesterday as the music swelled to a final high and her whole world rearranged itself with her as the enemy.

“You don’t want to go anywhere?” Tory guessed when Cally didn’t say anything.

Not exactly what she’d been about to say, but Cally nodded. She thought of Galen, of what he might ask, and she didn’t know what she could say. And if he knew, if he took Nicky away and turned her in, if he killed her himself—it was too fresh, too too fresh for her to do anything.

“I’ll take care of that,” Tory said absently to the previous comment as she slipped on work clothes.

The strange calm of knowing infused Cally with just enough that she believed Tory. Looking down at her child, he was all that filled her mind. He was a half Cylon. A hybrid. An abomination if that word had any use at all in these days. Looking at him, she hated and feared and loved him all at once, and she wondered if it was because she couldn’t feel that for herself yet.

She didn’t move from the bed and she didn’t leave Nicky.

***

Tory’s day was scarcely different from any other, even as she had to visit below decks before the President.

Galen was not a hard man to find when he was frightened. “Tory, good,” he said, looking ready to pull his hair out, “I need to talk to someone official.”

“Cally, right?”

“You know something?” He grabbed her shoulders, eyes frantic. “She’s gone, her and Nicky, completely gone!”

“No, she’s not.” Tory looked him straight in the eyes. “The drugs she was on—there was a kind of reaction last night, maybe an overdose, and she wandered off. I found her in a pretty bad state and she wouldn’t let me leave her side, or let me speak of you. Even today, she seems distraught.” Lying to Galen Tyrol was so easy.

“I knew things were bad, but this...” He swallowed, grimacing.

“Look, it’s all under control,” Tory continued with well-used assurances. “As soon as she’s doing better, we’ll let you know. For now, you just need to do your job and let her have her space. She’s definitely needing that.”

“Okay, okay,” Galen nodded, expression firming up. “I’ll just—”

“Do your job and relax.” Tory nodded. “Believe me, things like this happen all the time, what with trauma and close quarters and everything. It all works out eventually.”

Galen nodded, worried but taking it in stride, and walked off.

Tory stood and watched for a while, her eyes following his retreating form. She analyzed his words, his actions, and wondered how much he was worried for Cally, and how much he was worried for his wife. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but she was wondering if the constructs might not completely overlap in his mind.

But the rest of the day called to her, and so Tory moved on.

“You’re looking better,” Laura commented as Tory glanced over her clipboard with its checklist. “Restful night?”

Tory blinked. Of all nights, yesterday’s hadn’t been peaceful—but it had brought her yet another small piece of completion. “Sort of,” she said with a slight shrug.

Laura nodded and left it at that. As the president looked down at her papers, Tory had a brief moment where she wondered what would happen if she revealed them all right here and now. The risks were clearly too great, but Tory looked at Laura and thought that maybe she needed her fantasy world shaken up. Everything fit into neat little boxes in Laura’s world, even if she had to force them in; part of Tory yearned to shake the contents of those boxes free to take their real-world shape.

“We have another one,” she murmured to Tigh once they had a moment.

“Hmm?”

“Did you hear the song last night?” Tory glanced up at him. “I found Cally by the airlock; she heard it too, she knows.”

“Knows...” Tigh trailed off as his eye widened. “Cally? No, that can’t be. That’s like saying Chief is—”

“She is.” Tory let the simple words hang, and Tigh didn’t protest. Stranger things had happened.

“Wonder if we’ll find the fifth before Starbuck finds Earth,” Tigh grumbled under his breath as he walked off.

***

Cally had her words all prepared when Tory came back to the little chamber. Nicky’s screams sounded different to her now, and that was part of what she needed to have him calm for, to have this conversation.

“Stay here the whole day?” Tory asked, looking at Cally from under her brow as she closed the door.

Cally nodded, as Nicky’s jerky cries settled to sniffling, finally, the longer she bounced him. Her arms should be feeling tired right now, but they weren’t. “Tory, there’s something big I need to say—I didn’t realize everything yesterday.”

“There are so many things to realize, Cally, of course you couldn’t do it in one day,” Tory said with a relaxed smile, pulling up a chair next to the bed that Cally sat on.

Cally didn’t feel exactly easy with that tone of looking at things, and she lost her words for a second. But they were too pressing for her not to find. “Nicky’s not a half-Cylon,” she blurted.

Tory frowned.

Cally grimaced. “He’s not Galen’s child. Not...I almost forgot, with the marriage, and the life we lived. But he’s Sam’s.”

“Sam Anders?” Cally hadn’t known that Tory could look or sound that thrown off balance.

“It was just a stupid one night stand when we were drunk,” Cally muttered, hand rubbing Nicky’s back in an obsessive pattern. “He doesn’t know, even. But—”

“But Nicky’s a full Cylon,” Tory breathed out. “God, I...”

Cally swallowed. “It was killing me today, and I couldn’t think about anything else. I didn’t think it was possible for two Cylons to do that.”

“We’re different, maybe,” Tory murmured, putting a hand to her head as if it hurt, closing her eyes and rubbing at her forehead.

“That’s the other thing,” Cally said, waving her hand slightly in the air. “What do I—what happens with me and Galen, now that I’m...? I can’t go back and lie to him, not about something like this, it would hurt too much. But I can’t tell him the truth, so then what?”

Tory seemed to take an extra-long moment, as if Cally’s first reveal still had her shaken. “Ah, mm, well, let’s see. You still love him?”

The confusion in Cally’s mind broke for a second, and emotion came crashing down. “Of course,” she whispered, fiercely blinking back sudden tears. She noticed Nicky’s hair sticking out of place, and pushed it down with her spare hand. “Nothing about me has _changed_ , Tory. We—it’s been tough, but we get through. I’ve always cared.”

Tory nodded slowly, resting clasped hands on her knees. “But for now, you can’t be around him without letting him know what you are, and even if he didn’t do anything to you personally, he can’t know about it for the sake of the rest of us.”

Cally squeezed Nicky a little closer to herself, even as he looked up at her with confusion.

“We can use this to buy you time,” Tory said and looked up at her. “If you feel guilty, then confess to something he might expect you to feel guilty about. Tell him about Nicky.”

Cally jerked upright. “What?”

“Say that you can’t lie to him any longer, and he needs to know and you’ll understand if he needs a little time to think about it,” Tory continued and looked at her closely.

“Are you insane?” The words popped out of Cally’s mouth before she could think. “No one knows, not even Sam. I can’t let him come back to this. And—and what if Galen isn’t as upset as that? What if he thinks I’m telling him I don’t love him.”

“It’s not a perfect plan.” Tory shrugged.

Cally laughed bitterly. “This is my life. I can’t just take _chances_.”

Tory still leaned over her knees, brown eyes boring through Cally’s emotion with consistency.

Cally swallowed, and the thought of going back to Galen tickled at her brain. Looking in his eyes, telling him that she’d just had a breakdown, and that she’d be fine eventually. Maybe having him nod, ask what the matter was, get her whatever she needed. Or she could tell him a truth too, tell him that she’d lied this past year of parenthood and watch the belated betrayal strike his eyes. But it would be the truth.

Breathing in deeply, she found that knowing all these new facts drove general feelings out of the way. Malaise, depression, they seemed to take a back seat to specific worries. She realized that she’d never seen Galen during a personal crisis; if he’d ever faced a difficult decision, she’d never been privy to it. There had been stories about things he’d done, but nothing was like being in one of them. This bit about Nicky would be a stepping stone, so she could guess what his reaction to a bigger reveal might be.

Nicky made a small noise and reached for her, grabbing at her neckline. Cally shook her head as if to free the bustling thoughts, and glanced around the room and back to Tory. “He’s hungry again.”

“I don’t keep a lot of food here.” Tory bit her lip. “It wouldn’t be good for your cover if you went to the mess hall, either. Maybe I should take him? I’ve already admitted involvement in this.”

Cally breathed out, only a little tension going with it. Tory could sit there with such simple emotions on her face, with a plan for everything. Cally wanted to stop floundering and find that. Nicky’s cry distracted her again, his tiny nails digging into her skin as he tried to get her attention. Her mouth tightened for a second. “That’s okay, I guess. You take Nicky, and I can...go talk to Galen.”

Tory’s eyebrow raised slightly. “So you’re doing it, then?”

Cally gulped down the vestiges of wild emotion, trying to model her calm after the woman before her. “I need an answer.”

“Good, good,” Tory murmured. She glanced at Cally for permission, and after Cally nodded she scooped the fussing Nicky into her arms. “He eats algae mixes?”

Cally slid off the bed and stood up, running a hand through her hair and feeling grimy beneath her standard tanks. “Yeah, some. He’s a little fussy if you don’t pay him attention, though.”

Tory’s lips quirked, and she looked down at Nicky’s face. “Well, someone’s going to try to be a bit of trouble, isn’t he?” she said in a tone that managed to be cool and warm at the same time.

Cally watched her rock him and smoothly turn towards the door, and sighed. There were only two people in the Fleet that she would trust with her child now; at least one of them seemed up to the task.

After Tory left, Cally leaned on the sink and watched her face in the mirror. Her fingers brushed over the dark circles under her eyes, and she noted the pale hue in the rest of her face and the light in her eyes that wasn’t from joy or anger. She’d always seen a human in that reflection, the only thing that was so alive that it could be fragile. Now, as her stomach rolled in her, and as she felt all the dirt and emotional weariness clinging to her, being a Cylon made her no less touchable.

She had to squeeze her eyes shut to hold back two stinging tears, but her jaw was set when she opened them again. The feeling of truth in her mind made her stand up straight; it would keep her going through this whole Cylon mess.

Now she needed a shower, and then she would go to her husband.

***

Tory’s unfamiliarity with 99% of the people on Galactica made blending in a matter of natural course. Nicky did not scream or flail, and instead grabbed the side of Tory’s shirt with one hand and drooled all over the other one, and so Tory could find a free table and food with ease. It helped that it was the late afternoon, granted, and before the usual supper rush.

Finally sitting down with the important child, Tory observed him carefully. His messy blond hair and splotchy cheeks didn’t look like the union of two advanced beings, but she supposed that all children were works in progress. As she offered him a tiny coo along with a spoon of algae mash, he looked up at her with very blue eyes.

Not that this was unusual at his age, but it struck Tory at the moment that they were not his mother’s eyes. Cally’s confused revelation had knocked several of Tory’s assumptions out of the way, and they came rushing back as Nicky smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth with a slight grimace at the green food.

“Disgusting if there’s no variety, isn’t it,” she said with an upward-rising lilt, following Cally’s suggestion for keeping him eating. “I don’t know about you, but I sometimes wonder now if the Cylons have anything better on their ships.”

Nicky blinked his blue eyes, but swallowed the food.

“You’re Sam’s progeny, then,” she continued in the same tone and tilted her head, scooping another small portion of the mush for her tiny charge. “Last night, when you were asleep, I thought about all of us on New Caprica, how we all kept to the same circle. Goes a little closer than I thought. I sleep with Sam, Cally sleeps with Sam and makes you...”

Nicky didn’t seem to notice that her smile for his benefit was not related to her words, even if the tone matched as she spooned him another bite and said, “Let’s just hope that Tigh has been left out of the circle of Sam’s interaction on that level, shall we?”

He swallowed the food and gurgled, reaching towards the glass of water on the table. Tory sighed and gave him a sip, wiping the spot of mess at the corner of his mouth. He turned his face up to her and grinned lopsidedly—her absent smile back at him was a little more real that time.

If they were all so connected even with their memories lost, she wondered how that hypothesis might relate to the fifth of them. There were only a few possibilities. Galen, it seemed almost impossible. Ellen, was dead. Laura, as if. There was only one other connection to their group, and Tory’s eyebrow raised as she considered Kara again. That would be quite the easy choice, really, so she wondered why she hesitated at all. Perhaps because of all the people whom she felt would not fit in their little covert group, Kara was number 1 on the list. Maybe it was Tory’s biases alone, but Cally was wild card enough, she didn’t think they needed the ultimate one.

If Kara wasn’t a Cylon, though, she wondered what it would mean for Sam. Tory had no interest in the state of their marriage, but she knew Kara’s reputation with enemies. Without the realization that had hit all of them so intimately, could Kara accept how these Cylons were different? She doubted it, and hoped that Sam could hold his tongue for the sake of the group as well as himself.

But Kara wasn’t the only one; Tory supposed that the first test of how marriages could hold up to secret revelations would be enacted today. As Nicky settled in her arms after his meal, waving one hand randomly as he sucked the other, she wondered what outcome she was wishing for, for all their sakes.

***

Cally had to wait a little more than half an hour for Galen to come back to their quarters. Outwardly she felt clean and neat, for maybe the first time in weeks; she’d even tied back her clean hair. But inside, there was a dirty feeling that she hadn’t felt in Tory’s quarters; these ones had been hers and had been created with lies.

It was a relief when the door opened, even if her heart started charging at a frantic rate.

“Cally?” Galen breathed out, standing stunned.

“Galen.” Her voice caught.

“What happened?” He rushed in, putting out his hands but pulling them back before he touched her, looking concerned. “Nicky?”

“He’s being taken care of right now,” Cally said and nodded. She swallowed, and knew the guilt must be shining in her eyes. “I need to...I can’t stay here.”

Something huge in Galen’s face fell.

“Something came up,” Cally struggled to find words, “and I have to face it alone.”

Galen swallowed. “Okay,” he said, but didn’t sound like he meant it.

“Galen, I—I have to tell you something else, though.” Cally fumbled for the right timing, and didn’t think she had found it, but had to keep pushing forward. “This thing, it reminded me of how much I hoped we—we would always be open with each other...and I needed to clear something old out of the way. Something I wasn’t honest about.”

She saw a strange kind of surprise in Galen’s eyes as they met hers. It burned at her heart to think that he just assumed that they had been open; if this was surprise enough, how could she ever, ever explain the big one? “It’s about Nicky.”

He stepped forward, brow creasing. “He’s all right?”

She nodded, swallowing. “Yes, but he’s...not yours. I thought you should know.” Her voice failed her on the last word.

“He’s not mine?” Galen’s face seemed disbelieving and stricken all at once.

“It wasn’t anything, it was just a drunk night, and I almost forgot it after we were so happy together,” Cally continued, as she couldn’t bear the silence. “I didn’t mean to...”

“He’s not mine?” Galen said again, tone rising as if this was impossible.

“No.” Cally let the word just land. She felt her eyes tearing up as she saw Galen’s emotions ready to burst forth, and hated that she was the one to do this.

“So this is just a part of what happened last night...” Galen muttered, eyes straying for a moment before drawing back to hers. “What are you looking for here, Cally? An ‘oh, okay, that’s fine’ reaction? Whose is the kid if he’s not mine, if I’ve spent the last year just being surrogate?”

Cally shook her head tightly, trying to swallow her regret and tears. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why?” Galen demanded, stepping closer again.

“Because I can’t, Galen,” Cally cried out to him, as his emotions seemed to drag hers forward. “It’s not just names—but I can’t explain the rest, you have to trust me.”

“Trust you?” Galen laughed, hurt. “Are you saying this was the only lie, then?”

She knew what he was asking, but in all honesty there was at least one more, so she just stared at him and couldn’t say what would only almost be true.

“What else is there?” Galen demanded.

“I’m not ready to tell you,” she said, voice falling, wishing now that there had been any other way, wishing that she could act her way into a lie that would have made this easy.

He stared at her as if he didn’t know her anymore. “You were doing something last night, when Tory found you, weren’t you? It wasn’t just an overdose.”

Cally wanted to deny it, but again, she couldn’t pull it off to his face. “Yes. But—”

“Cally, whose baby is it?” Galen asked sharply, stepping in again. “Tell me that, just let me know that one thing. Of all the things—you owe me, Cally.”

“I can’t tell you,” she said, the words falling with aching earnest.

“Cally, I need to know,” he said, grabbing her shoulders, eyes wild with a dozen different emotions.

A cry caught in her throat and she couldn’t do this, and she pushed him away, hands at his shoulders.

He flew back a few steps, his back slamming with a crack against the wall. Cally’s hand flew to her mouth as she suddenly remembered Cylon strength. She felt sick again, but couldn’t find an apology, couldn’t find anything that could express any of what she was feeling. All she could do was watch him try to read the situation.

Galen shook his head and looked at her with a sudden forced cool. “This thing that came up...you want a divorce then, I’m guessing?”

Her heart broke. She’d failed miserably at this confrontation. “No, Galen,” she protested, voice broken, tears stinging at her eyes. “I want what I’ve always wanted, for us to be _happy_ , for you to love me no matter what. This was never supposed to happen.” They were supposed to be stronger than this, something less easily broken.

“No, I bet it wasn’t,” he snapped. “Well you know what? I didn’t settle for this.” He turned and walked out the door in a few steps.

Cally stood alone in their old room, tears streaming now from her eyes. Her face crumpled, and her hands went to her face. It had suddenly become clear that she wasn’t the only one revealing uncomfortable truths. Galen couldn’t even stay to ask why. He didn’t even care that much. She bit back a sob and couldn’t look any minute longer at the house they’d pretended to have founded together.

Being Cylon was the only solid thing left besides Nicky, and she gathered what strength she had remaining, and almost ran back to where she was still welcome.


	3. Chapter 3

Cally came back to the room, face distorted with tears and grief, and sunk into the chair looking smaller than ever.

Tory had been running out of things to try to get Nicky to stop crying, but it all vanished from her mind then. “What happened?” she asked, worry striking her sharply. Nicky arched his back, arms flailing out for his mother.

“I was right, I was too right,” Cally sobbed, head in her hands.

Nicky’s cries started matching hers in rhythm and volume, and as soon as Tory moved close enough, he grabbed at his mother. Cally gathered him to her breast, clasping him near and rocking back and forth as she cried.

Tory felt a pang of regret—for what, though, she didn’t know. Scooting closer along the bed, right next to the chair, she hesitated a moment with brow creased before putting a hand to Cally’s back. “Did you tell him all of it?”

Cally shook her head, and Nicky started quieting, sucking loudly on his fist as Cally held him right by her heart. “Just enough to make plain that I was believing lies too.”

“It’s not our fault that we don’t remember.” Tory started rubbing small circles on the tense muscles of Cally’s shoulders, frowning in her worry.

“Not that,” Cally said, and the bitter scorn in her look wasn’t really for Tory. “I told myself before that he had to care, because he stayed. It didn’t stop me from wishing that he would hit me, even, anything to prove that there were emotions, but I thought that that might be my own messed up head.”

“Cally,” Tory murmured, feeling more distress than she would have expected.

“I know, I was an idiot,” Cally said, spitting the last word out. “He was practically looking for a reason to believe that I didn’t care, and just rejected Nicky in all ways but actually saying it. What man who cares would just leave like that?”

“He’s hurt,” Tory offered, but she didn’t believe it.

Cally shook her head, bringing the back of her hand to rub at her nose, runny from her crying. “He’s not going to come back, even when he calms down. I saw it in his eyes, all that mattered was his own betrayal. So Nicky and I are nothing to him, and he didn’t even know what we were.”

Tory bowed her head, no words or thoughts to offer.

For a second there was only the sound of mother and son sniffling, calming. Then Cally whispered. “I just lost the only family I have, Tory, and I had so much worse to admit even if he’d stayed around.”

“We’re your family, Cally,” Tory insisted, gripping Cally’s shoulder and pulling the woman in for a sideways embrace. “If nothing else, we have to be that.”

But Cally’s tears started flowing again, and though she leaned against Tory all she did was weep for some time yet. None of them had wanted this to happen, but they had all known that this discovery of themselves wouldn’t go smoothly. Just...this wasn’t exactly part of the plan.

For the second time in less than two days, Tory held Cally in her grief and disquiet, and if she had doubted her sudden feelings of care and protection for these two, she didn’t doubt anymore. Cally had all but admitted it; they were the only family they had.

***

All the pent-up doubts that Cally had been denying flowed out in that crying spree, and she didn’t know how long it lasted, only that Nicky finally gave up and joined in the wailing again. Tory suggested that they both clean up, and so Cally washed both their faces and tried to freshen up.

Nicky was too hungry to refuse the food Cally offered him in the mess hall, even though she had no attention to spare for him. For most of the meal Tory just sat by her, and was more comforting in her silence than most people Cally had known. It made her want to laugh harshly, and realize how empty her life had been since the Cylon attacks. Maybe it was all preparation for this.

But while he ate enough, Nicky refused to cooperate for the rest of the evening, and especially when it turned into night. Cally nestled with him on the small bed facing the wall, and tried to hum a song. When it came out as the one about the watchtower, she shivered and her voice faltered, but she found another one and carried on. Nicky squirmed and tried to pull away, but she held him still, and eventually his eyes drooped and his breathing steadied in sleep.

Cally didn’t move from being curled around him, her little scrap of innocent comfort no matter how trying. She didn’t care if they were both Cylons; in fact, it made it easier now. The implications behind that had her shaking in silent tears then, eyes squeezed shut. Tory sat behind her on the bed and stroked her hair until she quieted.

“Please stay close,” Cally whispered, and she felt so tired.

“Of course,” she heard Tory’s answer.

The bed was small, and Tory ended up curled alongside Cally, but it was exactly what Cally wanted. Breathing out all her tensions, Cally let her mind melt into the human comfort of this, and didn’t even bother to consider the irony of that word.

Tory was quick to get things moving the next morning. “You’re officially off duty on medical leave for a couple days,” she informed Cally. “As long as you check in with Cottle about your dosage, and he may want you to see a therapist. You should probably pick up your things from the laundry crew today, and bring them back here. I’ll deal with what’s in your apartment, just to make it easier.”

Cally nodded, not trusting her voice, and gave Tory a thankful squeeze of the hand as she went out to her own busy day. She shouldn’t have been surprised to get knowing looks from the folks down at the laundry bay, not when she knew Galen and his ways. Cringing from the memories alone, she bit her tongue and collected her and Nicky’s things. He needed a good changing, and little thoughts like that gave her focus.

They might know about Galen leaving, though, but they had no reason to hate her for anything else. Cally didn’t hesitate to ask one of the women for the thick bedding with the large stain, and though all resources were recycled, Cally would gladly turn in her clean but thinner blankets for what use this would be. After a quick promise to bring by the replacement, and a small smile that had very little feeling behind it, Cally returned to Tory’s (her) quarters after a couple hours.

The physical movement got her heart pumping, and the little headache she hadn’t known she had until then disappeared. It was a slight shock to return to the small apartment and see both Tory and Tigh, but not when Tigh nodded to her.

“Welcome to the frakked up section of the universe,” he rumbled, the same wry tone that Cottle used, if maybe a little more bitter underneath.

“It’s not the end of the world yet, sir,” Cally said, half under her breath.

“We can dismiss with the sir, I think.” Tigh rolled his eyes wearily and offered a hand. Cally grasped it gratefully, and it felt good when he pulled her in for a firm pat on the back. “We’ll all survive somehow, won’t we,” he said, looking her straight in the eye.

“Hope so,” she murmured, setting down the laundry bags.

“I thought we should all talk,” Tory said, as Tigh took a seat and Cally and Tory sat on the bed. “Sam isn’t due back with the others for another five weeks, and we shouldn’t wait.”

“Agreed,” Tigh rumbled.

Cally took a deep breath. “What are we doing?”

“That’s the question isn’t it,” Tigh intoned, and rubbed at his good eye.

“We don’t know what we’re doing here,” Tory said, flipping one empty hand up to indicate their knowledge base. “We don’t know why we were called at the Nebula or even who we are, beyond knowing we’re Cylons. Sam said he was recognized by the Raiders, which was why they broke off the battle then, but that’s just confirmation and not anything new.”

Cally gulped, and suddenly that strange battle made a little more sense, not that she’d ever given much thought to the odd kind of luck the Fleet had. “So we’re staying quiet until we have a, a purpose or something?”

“It’s only been a couple weeks.” Tory shrugged.

Cally shook her head. “I don’t...I don’t like not doing anything. It feels wrong.”

“It does,” agreed Tigh. “But we have to be careful.”

“We do have resources, though.” Tory was leaned over her knees, arms propped up on her elbows and hands resting under her chin. She glanced at them both. “Athena didn’t recognize Sam as a Cylon, so we don’t need to fear that for us. There’s a Six in the brig, and Dee has been watching Hera for the Agathons. I have no idea what we can find out, but there’s no point in just wasting time until we’re all four, or five, back together.”

“I can get access to the Six,” Tigh said.

“I know Dee,” Cally said, a slight pang as she realized how large the distance would now be between the two of them, even if Dee didn’t know.

“There’s one other resource on the Cylons,” Tory said with a grimace. “I almost forgot. Baltar.”

“Oh good gods,” Tigh grunted.

“Maybe I can get to him on some political issue, make it seem legit,” Tory said distastefully, sitting up straight. “Being Roslin’s aide has to be good for something.”

“So we have missions now,” Cally commented, with a dry half-laugh.

“We’re not waiting around for the Fleet to find out and airlock our ignorant asses,” Tigh pointed out with a raised eyebrow. He rose, nodding to them. “We’ve got to keep fighting, even if we don’t know what for other than our pathetic skins.”

As he left, Cally realized that she hadn’t thought about anything else for that full meeting. Already her old life was fading away. Part of her begged to take it back, but the rest of her was clinging to all this since it almost seemed safer.

“What’s this?” Tory asked, looking at what Cally had brought back from the laundry.

“Oh,” Cally said, standing up, Nicky still in her arms. “It’s a tough old bedspread. I thought, if we scooted out the bed, we could probably set up a little add-on for Nicky close to the wall. I don’t like being such a space hog here.”

Tory looked at her for a second, then her mouth curved in a small smile. “Believe me, it’s not a problem. I think we can make it work, though. If nothing else, Nicky will probably appreciate the space.”

Cally smiled back. “No kidding.”

Being part of the Cylon family didn’t seem so scary from the inside.

***

Baltar was just as easy to find when you wanted to as when you didn’t, disturbingly so, Tory discovered. Dinner in the mess hall meant people all around, but Baltar was no fool, and she knew she’d stand out to him as being connected to Roslin. So she took a fairly obvious seat and just stared.

It was pathetic how quickly his eyes darted to hers, how he shifted behind the several women who sat at his table, and yet kept glancing back towards her. Her gaze didn’t break. He didn’t seem so much on edge as just...wary.

Finally he walked over, in an act of boldness that she almost hadn’t expected, prepared to walk over and confront him herself.

“Is something the matter?” he asked in a cool tone, sitting across from her in ridiculously exaggerated civilian clothes.

“That’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it?” she said, leaning her head to one side. “Shouldn’t you know better than anyone?”

“I haven’t done anything illegal,” he said, under his breath so only she could hear.

“Yet so quick to assume that I think otherwise, without even a word,” Tory tossed back at him, her steady eyes trying to hold his wavering ones.

“If Roslin doesn’t have anything solid against me, then why are you here?” Baltar asked with a hiss of impatience that didn’t quite hide the nervousness.

Tory let her mouth slowly curve into a smile, eyes never leaving him. “Roslin doesn’t realize who you are, Gaius.” He flinched at her cool use of his name. “You’ve been acquitted, so she doesn’t see anything else to do with you. But none of your knowledge disappeared with the stamp of approval, did it?”

He blinked. “Wh—well—what do you want to know?”

Tory’s lips still pressed together in a tight curve, but she leaned in across the table, playing with the small water glass in her hand. “It may not seem like the biggest priority, but we still don’t know all the Cylon models’ identities. You were on their ships; don’t tell me you didn’t learn anything.”

“You want to know about the Final Five?” Gaius had no filter to his words when he was caught off guard, just as Tory had planned.

“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?” Tory couldn’t believe how easy the shrug came.

Baltar’s eyes flitted back and forth, and he licked his lips briefly. Tory knew that, whatever scraps floated around in that cramped brain of his, he didn’t consider them worth that much. She’d hear the truth.

It didn’t worry her though.

***

“It’s been bothering me.” Cally shrugged and bounced Nicky on her hip to hide her nervousness, making his humming noises come out staccato.

“No, she’s been a great little kid,” Dee said. She smiled, offering Cally a seat. Hera crouched in the corner over CIC reports with the computer edges still attached, crayon in her fist, quite oblivious. “Alone isn’t the easiest thing to do, but I’ve handled worse.”

“I probably shouldn’t stay for long,” Cally said. But when Nicky pulled at her, trying to get down, she let him go over and join Hera. For a moment her eyes fixated on the two, representatives of the new Cylon race. They didn’t look so terrifying.

“Hey,” Dee said, drawing Cally’s attention back. “This was about you more than Hera, right?”

A sudden leap of panic caught in Cally’s throat. “What? No—why would you—what do you mean?”

Dee’s smile was a little sad. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Cally, if you don’t want to talk about it. Just, after hearing what happened the other day, and you coming to me...never mind, it was a presumption.”

Cally swallowed, realizing that she meant Galen. “Oh.” She scrunched her face, and it was harder to find what to say when you didn’t know what you thought. The wish popped into mind that Dee being a Cylon would be the perfect ending, the perfect set of people around her. Tory, Sam, even Tigh, all taking good care of her; but Dee would be a friend. Then again, nostalgia wasn’t doing anyone any good, and she felt disloyal to Tory for almost dismissing her out of hand. “I should probably get to work,” she said after a pause with a sheepish nod.

“You know it’s okay, right?” Dee said, standing up as Cally did and looking at her closely. “I’ll be here.”

Cally managed to look her in the eyes, but her thoughts just said, _you’re here now, but will you be when you find out_? She didn’t feel vulnerable anymore, but all these people from her older life seemed so far away. It was what still repelled her from full acceptance.

Nodding one last time, Cally walked over to scoop up Nicky where he and Hera silently scribbled. “Hey boy,” she said, finding that if she thought about it, Cylon strength made him only half as heavy as she remembered.

“For you,” Hera said, suddenly looking up and giving her a piece of paper.

“What?” Cally settled Nicky on her hip, her mind taking a second to turn back from hypotheticals to the very real child.

“Pikker for you,” Hera said in her small voice.

“Okay,” Cally said, laughing slightly as she took the paper from Hera. A square shaped purple blob on the left was only accented by two tiny stick figures on the right that had six legs and two heads. “Thanks.”

“Tower,” Hera explained, standing up and pulling down the paper to point at the blob. “’N horsies.”

“Oh, they’re horse-riders,” Cally said, nodding, not having to feign that it was nice to know what those mutant stick figures were. She gave a nod to Hera, tucked the paper in her pocket, and then smiled to Dee before leaving.

After the door closed behind her, she realized that her mission to find out anything about Hera had been completely dropped by the wayside. Cally sighed, but supposed there wouldn’t have been anything even if she hadn’t. She didn’t know how she was supposed to ask any of the relevant questions without Dee wondering, anyways.

“I assume she didn’t tell _you_ anything,” she murmured to Nicky. He grinned toothily up at her, but said nothing.

She passed a couple near-empty corridors before turning the corner where above-decks split with below-decks. Normally she’d have gone below—and as her eyes glanced that way, she recognized the figure coming up that hall.

Her heart beat loudly, and she turned with a quick intake of breath to walk on swiftly the other way, to act as if she hadn’t seen Galen coming.

“Cally, wait.”

It wasn’t just an accident. Cally stopped, closing her eyes a second. She still wasn’t ready to face him and she had nothing new to say. But she turned anyway, looking up at him with a set face. “What?”

“I shouldn’t have left things hanging yesterday,” Galen opened with, worry lines all over his face and eyes dark. “I was thinking today...and I needed to come to a conclusion.”

Nicky cooed and reached out one sticky hand for his father, but Galen wasn’t even looking at him.

Cally bit the inside of her lip at that, tasting the bitter tinge of blood as she tightened her jaw. She suddenly felt in that moment what she’d said emotionally before, that no matter what happened she and Galen were done. He had always been quick-tempered, grudge-holding, and if he couldn’t even forgive his own _child_ , then what chance did she have? When he didn’t even consider “her kind” as people? Her desperate grasp for familiarity had driven her to express a love that just wasn’t that powerful when she broke it apart. Maybe he would try, but it would always come back to who he was, and a different Cally had married him—this Cally couldn’t.

“Look, I can’t live with lies,” Galen said flatly, not quite looking her in the eyes even as his words stayed steady. “I know—I know you probably didn’t mean to hurt me, but I can’t just _get over_ that, not when you won’t tell me.” He put up his hand. “I don’t care what other reasons there might be, Cally, you were my _wife_ , and I thought...well, it doesn’t matter.”

Cally tightened her grip around Nicky, turning him so he couldn’t keep reaching for Galen. There wasn’t a muscle in her body that wasn’t tensed, and her mind kept fierce focus on Galen’s face, on his words, and on the something that lay behind them.

“Maybe if things were different, we could work through this,” he said and sighed, rubbing at his brow with his hands. “But Cally, we didn’t even have enough time to maintain what we thought we had, so I—if we can’t live with each other, maybe we just shouldn’t.”

His eyes met hers shortly, and Cally’s heart overturned when she saw a glimmer of hope in them. “You want a divorce, then?” She kept her voice small.

“It’s just, Cally, we’re going to keep hurting each other,” he explained further.

But all Cally saw was the relief behind his face, relief that she wasn’t protesting him. The tension she didn’t have a name for heightened, and she realized that it was anger. Cold anger, for the way he’d always taken everything for granted, doing “what he could” whenever he happened to remember that marriages weren’t self-maintaining, not even caring that he disappeared into his work. She had no doubt that he didn’t _intend_ to be neglectful, hurtful. He also didn’t _intend_ to put any work into something that had been haphazard from the beginning.

In that moment, as he stood ready to let it all go without a second thought, without a look of concern for her or Nicky, she hated him for it. “You’re right,” she said, but they were just words, she didn’t mean them the way he did.

Galen swallowed and looked down at his feet. “So, since we didn’t get a marriage license due to paper issues, I guess we just need to formalize everything in an oral session with a lawyer.”

“Make the arrangements for tomorrow, then?” Cally’s gaze was waiting for his to rise, to hold it without regret or hesitation.

He finally met her eyes, and for a moment she seemed to affect him. “I did love you, Cally,” he said, finally meeting her eyes. “It was never you that was the problem.”

Oh, but Cally knew that. It wouldn’t have mattered who the girl was. No, she had no guilt on that subject, and now she barely regretted concealing anything. “Good luck with your life, Galen,” she said coolly, taking a step backwards, tasting a hint of bile in her throat.

He nodded and turned away, back to his ships, back to his little world.

“Daddy!” wailed Nicky, reaching over Cally’s shoulder as she went the opposite way.

“He’s not your daddy, baby,” Cally said quietly, hugging her son close. There was despair in her hatred, and seeing him so careless could not just slide off her back, not after everything they’d had together. She knew in a few seconds she would desperately need Dee’s experience, no matter what their differences.


	4. Chapter 4

“Colonel,” Tory said, as they passed in one of the halls. The few tantalizing morsels that Baltar had revealed could wait until the next meeting, but she wondered about him and the Six—Caprica.

“Not even a peep.”

Tory raised an eyebrow, not having expected him to catch her drift. “Nothing ground-changing on my end.”

“Duties, then,” Tigh grunted, and carried on.

Were Tory younger, she might have found amusement in this whole situation, the almost stereotypical way they had to handle things, but the past years had been full of too many secret missions of grave importance for anything to be a joke.

Roslin was in for another deloxin treatment, and Tory had to organize approved papers for signing, but these days she’d rather be alone as she did so. Nothing against the random people who came in and out of the presidential quarters, but they were human. Papers in a folder under her arm, Tory finally came back to her quarters.

Cally was pacing, hands in her hair, her stare at nothing piercing in its intensity.

“Something go wrong?” Tory asked, her emotions tugging sharply at her. There was something about Cally that kept everything from falling neatly into place with Tory, always just out of her grasp, attention-diverting.

“I don’t know,” Cally said, slightly breathless, shaking her head as she continued to walk the tiny path the room offered. “Yes and no? It doesn’t seem right—but it is—so why can’t I think straight?”

“Nicky?” Tory asked, gaze darting around the room.

“Dee has him,” Cally said, and then stopped pacing and covered her forehead with one hand. Her breath came out slightly ragged, shoulders slightly shaking. “She said she’d watch him while I get a hold of myself. It’s tough that first day, she said. She doesn’t know, though, not half of it.”

“Cally, what’s wrong?” Tory grabbed Cally’s hand to keep her from moving, hoping at the same time that the physical contact would center her. Worry threatened to drive away all Tory’s cool thoughts from earlier.

“I’m divorcing Galen,” Cally said, finally bringing her eyes up to meet Tory’s. As she’d said, there was satisfaction and fear and anger all at once in them, topped with confusion. “We’re—divorced, Tory. He, I, he came and started talking, and it was clear. I wanted to kill him then, and I thought I loved him so much. He used us. We just followed along like children, and only one of us was.” Cally choked back her next words, fingers clenching, eyes almost wild.

Tory gently pressed Cally’s hand. Knowing she couldn’t even pretend that getting rid of Galen’s presence was not a relief, she said what was true. “He didn’t say anything to hurt you, did he?”

Cally’s eyes flashed. “As if I care anymore?”

“I believe you made the right decision,” Tory said briefly and nodded, seeing seething emotion in Cally that didn’t present an obvious catharsis.

Cally wasn’t repressing herself, though—her eyes dimmed for a second as they met Tory’s, and a half-sob came out. She put a hand to her mouth, clenching her jaw and groaning in frustration. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me—ever since that stupid song woke me, I feel like part of myself is hiding, and it’s driving me insane. I just can’t, I don’t even know, _resolve_ myself.”

Tory bit her lip, the storm of emotion about Cally crowding her as if it was her own. She worried, just like she had worried for Sam before he’d found the right face to present—maybe it had been easier for her, when her hatred of Cylons was cold and reasoned, not hot revenge like with them. “C’mere,” she murmured, and put out her arms.

Cally choked a little, but fell quickly into Tory’s embrace, holding tightly to her.

“We don’t need to be afraid,” Tory whispered, arms wrapped around Cally.

“I’m not afraid,” Cally protested with her face buried in Tory’s neck.

“Of course not,” Tory said, and a small smile crossed her face as she rocked lightly with Cally in her arms. It was like holding a small hurricane, hugging Cally, and then having it calm and descend. The agitation was still there just beneath Cally’s skin, and the mayhem of emotions wouldn’t just disappear—but like this, it was as if Tory could absorb some of that confusion into herself, just for now.

Cally tried to steady her breathing, stop taking huge gulps of breath. Her fingers clung to the back of Tory’s jacket, her embrace so tight that it was hard for either of them to breathe. Tory kissed Cally’s hair, maybe sensing that the small touch was needed.

Tory could feel Cally inhale deeply, and lean her head closer so that Tory brought her hand up to cradle her. “Everything will be fine,” she said, and believed it enough that she was ready to do almost anything to convince Cally. They had to come through this together, for the sake of both their sanities. Tory needed Cally to be okay.

After a minute, Cally twitched in Tory’s arms, pulling back just enough so she could take a deep breath and look into Tory’s eyes. Impulse shone from hers, and a sudden recognition of need. She leaned in to skim her lips over Tory’s, and Tory blinked and jerked with the sudden switch of sensation. Her folder of Roslin’s papers fell to the floor, splaying out unnoticed.

“Cally,” she whispered, just before Cally leaned in to kiss her again. Her lips weren’t as soft as they appeared, but Tory found herself reaching for more of the crushing urgency, tasting the tang of Cally and the salt of dried tears at once.

Cally’s hands reached for her face, holding it, as Tory buried her fingers in Cally’s hair and couldn’t help making a small noise against Cally’s mouth. This was more than just care and worry, this was everything that Tory didn’t know how to address when it hit her, so she just drowned herself in the storm that Cally brought. Their teeth clashed, and Cally’s quick moan spun Tory’s control far out of her grasp—she inhaled, breathing Cally in, desire threading through every nerve. Cally’s hand found her hip, pulling it close.

“Wait,” Tory gasped against her lips, forcing the word out as she brushed her hand along Cally’s cheek. She tipped her head down, resting their foreheads together.

“I want you,” Cally said, just above a whisper, body swaying. “Tory, don’t say you don’t, you were first.”

Tory swallowed, shaking her head briefly. “I know, since the airlock. But we—Cally—”

“Don’t say we need to talk either, because we don’t,” Cally breathed out, one hand fitting into the small of Tory’s back, the other just below her hip, almost kneading her curves already. Tory could barely breathe. “I won’t regret this later, I promise,” Cally continued. “There’ll be a later.”

“Good,” Tory managed, before she lost her breath entirely, lips claiming Cally and cleaning every trace of tears from her soft face. The sweet racing beat of her pulse had her whole body almost shivering, wanting to touch every inch of Cally, learn each new place by touch and taste and smell. The air pulsed around her ears, and all she could hear clearly was each noise that escaped Cally’s throat as her fingers found Tory’s breasts and waist, Tory’s skin electrifying with each softly-calloused touch.

Cally stepped backwards, slipping a little on the forgotten papers spread on the floor, tugging them both towards the bed. Tory lost her shoes as she crushed down over Cally, fingers already lost in trying to yank the tanks and pants away, feeling Cally’s nimble hands wreaking havoc with all sense of planning to this encounter.

Identity, safety, acceptance, memory, all of them disappeared into something that Tory wanted so much more—Cally. The want came from too deep in her, too primal and strong for any hours-later reasoning to change. She couldn’t let go now.

***

Cally lay back against the bed, Tory tangled between her legs with her face pillowed on Cally’s belly as she rested. They’d finally caught their breaths again.

Cally closed her eyes, fingers reaching down to twine in Tory’s curls. The memories came back, Tory’s face above hers, the scent of her hair more intoxicating than Cally could have imagined, and Cally tasting herself on Tory’s lips in that kiss. She exhaled jerkily now, the rush of peace through her limbs both a gift and a balm.

She wasn’t feeling guilty. Cally didn’t do guilt, not for herself. Only if some of the world reproached would it eat away at her heart, and the only person in this was Tory. Cally had arched against her with fingers slick as they pressed and swirled, and the haze of pleasure in Tory’s eyes had been enough. Tory wouldn’t feel guilty; Cally was safe.

Now was the time when things were supposed to move on, but Cally didn’t _feel_ it. A dart of stubbornness shot through her comfortably weary limbs. She stirred, and Tory lifted her head, and Cally found herself scooting down the bed to pull Tory close, entwining them and pulling the blanket over both. “’m tired,” she murmured, kissing Tory’s cheek.

She caught a tiny smile curled at the corner of Tory’s lips, and her hand settled snugly at Cally’s hip as they lay together, warm skin on skin beneath the covers. Tory’s eyes were half-shaded in dozing already, and Cally didn’t stay awake long enough to see the last fall into sleep.

Nothing haunted her quick dream: no cold Centurion bodies, no glowing basins of slippery goo, no copies of herself lining alien hallways. She just floated through golden light, plush red beneath her feet, like lifesblood surrounding her. The surreality might have frightened her days before, when her world didn’t make sense. Now, no foreign medicine flowed through her veins, no loose threads hung except around her memory, and she was safe and strong. The dream was just a brief escape.

Cally woke with Tory’s head resting between her breasts, Tory’s own pressed against Cally’s belly, and the first rushing thought to her head was that this was a new experience she wouldn’t mind more of. She blinked, as it felt slightly awkward and she should be mourning the loss of her marriage. It made her shiver, though, and want to forget everything else.

Tory grunted as she started to wake, a visceral sound when coming from the woman who had been the graceful support for Cally so far, but it sounded good. She rolled slightly away from Cally, facing the clock on the far wall.

“Frak.” Tory put a hand to her head. “Frak!”

“What?” Cally asked.

“Roslin’s treatment is done, she’s expecting me with the papers,” Tory said, scooting to the edge of the bed and sitting up. “Frak me, I’m going to be late.”

Cally felt slightly disappointed as Tory moved away, leaving a bit of cold air to rush in. She watched as Tory bent down to gather her cast-aside clothes, her lazy eyes taking in Tory’s physical beauty in a way she hadn’t before. There was an adorable little mole on the left side of her ass, for one. She swallowed and looked up at Tory’s face when she turned around, slipping on her bra.

“I shouldn’t leave like this,” Tory said, a crease in her brow that was probably more for her professional life, but not completely. Her shirt went on silkily, buttons quickly fastened, long hair pulled out of the way of the collar.

“It’s all right,” Cally said, curling a little under the blanket. She felt a smile coming, even though it was a little confused. “I should go get Nicky anyways.”

Tory nodded as she glanced in her mirror, making a face at the sight of her still-mussed hair that she didn’t have time to fix. She ran her long fingers through it a few times, then grabbed her jacket and started stuffing the fallen papers on the floor back into her folder. “Until dinner, then? At the mess hall?”

“Sure,” Cally said and nodded.

Tory paused at the door, turning around with a look that matched the growing confusion in Cally. She gave a hesitant smile, and then opened the door and left.

Cally rubbed at her eyes, breathing out and wondering what exactly she’d done today.

***

Tory thought that perhaps she was losing her solidity in all this mess. If nothing else she could follow a schedule and a plan, even when her whole universe had been distorted and flipped. But this one woman, this one frak, and she had somehow melted into something else.

Worst of all, she had kind of enjoyed even that. Now she had to shake her head, find her professionalism again, and it felt pleasant but not perfect anymore. Hastily organizing the mostly-unimportant papers, she walked into the infirmary just as Adama was leaving with a book in his hand.

Laura Roslin lay with a soft smile on her disease-worn face. Her hands rested neatly on her lap as she lay propped up against pillows, and she didn’t look upset. It almost made Tory feel more guilty.

“Tory,” she said, the smile remaining. “A little late for you, right?”

“Sorry, Madame President,” Tory said, stepping forward and pulling up the stool. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Laura’s face straightened as she saw the papers, and she adjusted herself as Tory pulled down the side table for her to write on. But she glanced at Tory again. “Forget where you left your comb?” she asked in an amused tone.

Tory was glad that her flush was nearly invisible under her dark skin. “Not as far as I know,” she managed without stumbling over the words.

Laura made a small hum, as Tory put the first paper before here. “Oh, and Tory? Might I ask what happened between you and Baltar that left him shaken in a public place?”

“Oh,” Tory said, caught surprised. “Oh, yes, well actually, he accosted me at the mess hall, said that there were rumors about you shutting down his cult.”

Laura’s eyebrows rose. “False, but it has crossed my mind.”

Tory gave her an easy smile. “Which is what I told him.”

Laura nodded and turned back to the paper. “So, what is Joseph on about with this, do you remember?”

Tory breathed out in slight relief and gladly turned the focus to her work. It didn’t go as smoothly as it would have, if she’d had time to arrange each document with her previously-taken notes, but it was business as usual. She even forgot for a moment that there was anything Cylon out there, least of all in herself.

Once it was all finished, when Laura sighed and leaned back against her pillow, when Tory nodded and took all the signed papers back in hand, she rose and left and felt the rest of the world weighing down on her mind again.

Laura’s notice of her brief encounter with Baltar meant one thing for sure, and that was that it was uncharacteristic for Tory—for the non-Cylon Tory that she had to pretend to be for everyone’s safety. With Cally even more off limits for such reasons, the information gathering of the Final Five (well, Four) was almost at a standstill. How long could Tigh ask questions of Caprica Six before similar comments to Roslin’s would be directed at him by Adama?

For the moment, as she filed the paperwork where it needed to go, Tory felt the burn of frustration. All the cards were stacked against them, every single one, and they were resting on the thinnest of knife edges. Their only hope was for the Demetrius to come back and distract the Fleet with something huge, something that would cover up the Final Five’s desperate grasping for information.

Tory went around the rest of her work, making sure everything was moving or in place in the government the way it should be, and losing herself in the organization. A few hours later, as she looked at the clock and prepared to go to her dinner, she suddenly realized that it was important now. Being a Cylon, she could do nothing about that. This thing that she and Cally had dived into, that was the most significant conflict in her life right now.

Walking down to the mess hall, Tory wasn’t sure how it was all going to conclude, but as the only apparently good thing in her life she hoped it would keep on being all the confusing, unsure, distracting goodness that it had been so far. She tried not to worry about all the other options.

***

The one thing that lingered as Cally went to get Nicky was that she felt clean. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, quick fraks before you were legally divorced, before you’d forgotten the husband you’d once chosen. She could tell herself it didn’t count because she was a Cylon, but that didn’t ring true and all that did was that one moment of peace with Tory.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling softly at Dee as she scooped up Nicky.

Dee gave her a wistful stare. “You look a little better already, that’s great.”

Cally paused and took a deep breath. “I’m just not thinking about it till tomorrow, I guess.” It was a lie, and it came out too quickly for comfort.

She walked down to the hangar deck with Nicky in arms, jaw iron-tight as she looked for Laird. He had been a civilian, so it was easy to play the soft card, especially while curling her shoulders in and clutching at Nicky. Cally didn’t want to work with Galen anymore, she explained, but she didn’t want to approach him. Laird nodded, said he would arrange everything for her. She smiled and said thank you, then left.

It briefly crossed her mind that she could spin rumor her way if she wanted to. She’d let Galen slowly take her out of life, let herself accept that he and Nicky were social life enough, and begrudge him his trips to Joe’s without ever joining him there. Now she could do the opposite, if she wanted to.

Despite the bitter twist of her heart at the idea that screamed for her to do it to feel better, she didn’t. It would be against Galen, not _for_ herself, not _for_ anyone. The only thing she could do for herself was draw back and keep her secret safe until it meant something.

Smiling to herself, she walked off with Nicky. “We don’t need Galactica on our side, do we, baby?” she said softly to him. “We have Tory, and the Colonel, and even Sam when he comes back, and hopefully someone who’s not a nutjob for number 5. We’re good.” It just meant going a little faster with Tory than she was used to; Cally sighed, as everything was going too fast.

Taking two servings of algae mush, she tried to find the words for when Tory would show up. And tried. And tried. Nicky spat green flecks all over her hand, and she had to stop grinding her teeth to smile and coax him. Cally had never been good at words; all the ones that came to her head sounded awkward and forced, so she just poked at Nicky’s tummy to make him gurgle and eat out of amusement.

She felt her smile come out slightly twisted when she saw Tory, and her thoughts scattered like confetti. Trying not to bite her lip, she just said, “Hi,” as Tory took her seat.

“Hi,” Tory answered back with a vague semblance of smiling. She arranged her plate, as if just in case Cally really didn’t want to talk.

Nicky smacked his lips and pulled his sippy cup of water to him, giving Cally a moment to let her attention rest full on Tory. She swallowed, wishing that Cylons really could share information wirelessly. “So, about today...”

Tory nodded shortly.

“Can we just, uh, let it happen?” Cally felt like she was dropping the words.

Tory dipped her head for a second. “Pretend it didn’t happen.”

“No,” Cally responded quickly, halting Tory’s faulty paraphrase. “I mean, you know, just let it have happened.”

Tory glanced up with a strange kind of relief all over her face. Cally’s smile was a little less awkward, even if it shook slightly.

“I’m gonna be messed up about Galen for a little while, I think.” Cally tipped her head, trying not to grimace with the fresh pain and focus on expressing hope. “But I still like you, and you make me feel...good, and safe. So we can just work on that?”

Tory’s almost inaudible laugh rippled with the release of tension. “Yeah, we can work on that,” she said with a growing smile. She stretched out her hand, tangling her fingers with Cally on the table and squeezing.

“Okay, good,” Cally answered. Her mind was screaming ‘too fast’, but her heart told her that slow meant prolonging the pain.

“Your algae will get cold before mine,” Tory said then. “May I hold Nicky while you eat?”

Cally ducked her head, feeling that a flush was coming on. “Sure.” She felt glad to hand him over. “You know, I don’t expect you—”

“Of course I know,” Tory said smoothly, brushing Nicky’s hair with her fingers. “But I’m going to anyways, if you tell me what he needs.”

Cally took a spoonful of her algae, cocking her head as she chewed the bite before answering. “Well, fresh diapers would be nice.”

One of Tory’s eyebrows rose distinctly, but all she said was, “Sounds like a plan.”

Cally had never had a tastier dish of algae, and her stomach settled as peacefully as the rest of her when she walked with Tory back to their quarters. Nicky took two full hours to be convinced into sleepiness—by the time Cally tucked him in on his new partition of the bed she was yawning her head off, and wondering why, if they were machines, they had bothered to program in yawning.

She lay her head back on the pillow as Tory crawled in next to her, leaning down to kiss her forehead softly before rolling over to sleep. Cally’s relaxed smile followed her into sleep along with the realization that she didn’t really believe they were programmed, whatever they were.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Metallic Grey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/215979) by [ivanolix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix)




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